Photo i took of the MP4-26 in the scrutineering section, post-race. Interesting that the central section of the diffuser is no longer coated.Also assuming the 5 visible blue strips are temperature stickers?

Any post(s) made by this user are (semi-)educated opinion(s), based on random fact(s) blurred by the smudges of time.Any fact(s) claimed by this user will be supplemented by a link to the original source of said fact(s).

What is interesting is that the underside is grey across the full width. So that infers there are hot gasses across the full underside. Of course the alternative is that the difference is about the pragmatism of rushed fabrication.

Some people say the grey parts are where the diffuser was made from titanium, others reported the grey as a covering over a CF diffuser. Does anyone have anything other than heresy on this?

richard_leeds wrote:What is interesting is that the underside is grey across the full width. So that infers there are hot gasses across the full underside. Of course the alternative is that the difference is about the pragmatism of rushed fabrication.

Some people say the grey parts are where the diffuser was made from titanium, others reported the grey as a covering over a CF diffuser. Does anyone have anything other than heresy on this?

I agree with an earlier poster that the diffuser is coated with zircotec. The zircotec is applied onto the carbon fiber diffuser by plasma spraying. That is the only way you can get a good finish on carbon.

richard_leeds wrote:What is interesting is that the underside is grey across the full width. So that infers there are hot gasses across the full underside. Of course the alternative is that the difference is about the pragmatism of rushed fabrication.

Some people say the grey parts are where the diffuser was made from titanium, others reported the grey as a covering over a CF diffuser. Does anyone have anything other than heresy on this?

I agree with an earlier poster that the diffuser is coated with zircotec. The zircotec is applied onto the carbon fiber diffuser by plasma spraying. That is the only way you can get a good finish on carbon.

Martin brundle claimed it was titanium as does the forumla1.com website under the technical news.

Caerdroia wrote:Martin brundle claimed it was titanium as does the forumla1.com website under the technical news.

Unless the BBC are issuing mass spectrometers as part of their commentary kit, I am not sure how he would know. F1.com technical news doesn't have a great track record, and if Brundle simply read it there, then we still haven't really second sourced it.

In that picture it looks more like Titanium that's been coated rather than Carbon Fibre, look at the colour & the reflection on the centre section

As for manufacturing it out of Titanium then...

Superplastic Forming (SPF)

SPF of titanium alloys is commonly used in aircraft part fabrication, allowing production of complex structural efficient, lightweight and cost-effective component configurations. This high temperature sheet forming process (typically 870-925CÂ°(1660-1700Â°F)) is often performed simultaneously with diffusion bonding (solid-state joining) in argon gas-pressurized chambers, eliminating the need for welding, brazing, sizing or stress relief in complex parts. Titanium sheet alloys that are commonly superplastically-formed include the Ti-6Al-4V and Ti SP-700 alpha-beta alloys.

How is it formed though using SPF? Does it require a tooling of somekind? Is it like a stamping/extruding process?

I can see why they would go with some kind of RP route since to make the carbon version they'd need to manufacture mold, then layup and do all the fiddly bits. But I don't know if some kind of metal RP process will be any faster if you still need to tool up something....

RacingManiac wrote:How is it formed though using SPF? Does it require a tooling of somekind? Is it like a stamping/extruding process?

I can see why they would go with some kind of RP route since to make the carbon version they'd need to manufacture mold, then layup and do all the fiddly bits. But I don't know if some kind of metal RP process will be any faster if you still need to tool up something....